


Digging out the bullet

by orphan_account



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Angst, Banter, Bond is a bit messed up, But it takes a while, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Overuse of semicolons, Q Has a Cat, Q is somehow into him anyway, Sleeping Together, Smut, and so much fun, and the figurative, in the literal sense, they figure it out, two in fact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:28:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6291727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You know, you’re not a very fun travel partner,” Q says. Really, how rude.<br/>“Most people would beg to differ,” Bond says. He’s sure Q will be able to figure out what he’s alluding to, but apparently it needs to be said out loud, because Q smirks, before he speaks again.<br/>“Oh. And what do you do with these people?”<br/>“I shag them,” Bond says. He’s not usually one to beat around the bush, when the question is this direct.<br/>Q, as expected, smiles like he already knew this would be the answer.<br/>“Well,” he says. “I don’t put out until the third date.”</i>
</p><p>__</p><p>Bond and Q are on a mission, and sleep together. Things go on from there. Well... when Bond says sleeping together, it's not exactly what he usually means. It seems, to get there, they take the long way round.</p><p>Or: Bond is a bit messed up. Q is a bit in love with him. This may or may not be a good cocktail</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heyy. It's been a while since I said hello to you, my 00Q pals. But this is a good one, and it really needed to be written, my brain told me. I hope you'll like it!
> 
> All of the poetry snippets in this are from Richard Siken's collection Crush

_“The stranger says there are no more couches and he will have to / sleep in your bed. You try to warn him, you tell him / you will want to get inside him, and ruin him, / but he doesn't listen.”_

 

Bond loses his parents when he’s nine. When he’s thirteen, he has sex for the first time. At fifteen he moves out of the boarding school for good, and stops being touched outside of sexual situations entirely.

There have been brief moments, of course: Vesper, Dr. Swan. Occasionally they’d touch him, and it wouldn’t be leading to more. Rarities, though, especially with him being, well: himself.

The first time he meets Q, in front of that ghastly bleak painting, during that strange, strange time, all Bond wants to do with him, is to shag him.

Maybe it’s the cheeky grin, quick banter, and the definite flirting that does it for him; in this, he is not the only active party. Maybe it’s the mop of curls, the cardigan, and the very evident appearance of youth; the innocence that comes with that. Maybe, Bond thinks, all he’s really good at is conquering things and taking them apart. 

__

Bond touches Q for the first time outside of the strictly professional realms in a swish hotel room in Finland. Well. In actual fact, it’s probably more Q who touches him. 

They’re in the hotel room because of a mission. Why else? Q isn’t meant to come at first, of course; he has a lot of business going on at HQ. But Bond has a lot of business going on here, and if there’s anything he’s good at, it’s convincing people to help him. Subtly or, as is the case most days lately, not subtly at all.

Q seems the very opposite of happy about it when he, on a late Wednesday afternoon, arrives in the hotel room with a bag thrown over his shoulder and a sulky expression on his face. Maybe it’s the flying that did it; Bond has remembered Q’s fear of it.

“You know,” Q says, as the first thing upon entrance. “You could have picked me up from the airport.”

He barely glances at Bond before he stomps over to the unoccupied bed, and throws his bag to it, before throwing himself there as well. He reminds Bond somewhat of a cat; maybe it’s true that a pet-owner starts resembling said pet after enough time spent together. His movements are loose and languid, and he flings himself diagonally across the mattress, as if symmetry is a thing rather unimportant to him.

“My taxi-driver kept hitting on me,” Q says. “It didn’t even sound like he was gay.”

“Would I have been much better?” Bond asks. Not that they’ve been in particularly sexual situations together _yet_ , but… Such things are never really off the radar with Bond.

Q, apparently, finds the implications of that amusing. On the bed, he lets his head fall to the side, so he can glance directly at Bond. His lips are painted with a lopsided smile. His fingers thrum against his stomach, where his hands are neatly folded over each other.

“You don’t really hit on me,” he says. 

Bond decides not to reply; it’s not like there’s much to say to that. Instead, he shrugs. For a brief second Q narrows his eyes, looking like a thought overcomes him.

“Anyway,” Bond says, mostly to escape this. “I was working.” He wasn’t, really, but Q doesn’t have to know that.

“Hm,” Q says. “Is that so?” 

As if the two things are correlated, he immediately sits back up, and takes a second to glance around the room. It has two beds, a round table with two armchairs by the floor-to-ceiling window, and a desk with a desk-chair, that Bond is currently occupying. The door to the bathroom is open ajar, so if Q wanted to take a look in there, too, he could. 

“It’s very fancy, this,” Q says. He must mean the hotel room. Really, this isn’t much fancier than it ordinarily would be, but then Q doesn’t get out in the field much. Most of what he knows is HQ.

As he says this, Q gets up from the bed, and goes into the bathroom, but he leaves the door open behind him, and only turns on the light and stays for a few seconds, before coming back out. 

“It’s fairly regular in level of luxury, I should say,” Bond says. As he does, Q goes back to his bag, and grabs what looks like clothes and toiletries from there. 

“Cool,” Q says, before frowning, and stopping in his tracks. 

“’Cool’?” Bond asks. Despite himself, he can’t quite help the small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Q really isn’t _that_ young in technicalities, but when it comes to his appearance and, it would seem, his language, he might as well be. 

“I didn’t mean to say ‘cool’,” Q corrects himself. Now his grimace looks nearly put-upon, but it seems to be directed mostly at himself. “I meant to say… some word that means roughly the same, but sounds less like we’re street-smart teenagers.”

Bond raises his brows at him, and tries not to look like he finds this amusing. He has a suspicion that doing so would endanger his prospects of getting through physical evaluations with good grades for the foreseeable future.

“All right.” 

Q inclines his head, as if disgruntled. It didn’t work, then.

“I’m currently drugged up on more sleeping pills than are properly wise to consume, and I am also quite capable of just not helping you at all, so if you’d please–“ Q hold up his hand for Bond to keep silent, but, really, all Bond did was allow a little of his smile to seep through his defences. “If you’d please stop giving me that look, I am going to take a shower, and then a nap, and then we can talk about working.”

“Cool,” Bond says.

Q flips him the bird, and closes the bathroom door behind him quite a lot harsher than is really, strictly, necessary. Bond pretends not to be just a bit charmed. 

 

When Q gets out of the shower, dressed only in pants and a T-shirt, it is with water dripping from his hair, rolling down his shoulders and back in thick drops. Without care for this, he throws himself back on the bed, in the same position as earlier. The sheets might get wet. It seems this is not something they’ll be bothered by.

Bond, who had been pouring a glass of Scotch from the bar cart, barely glances up at him. You get used to existing around other people without really existing together, as a double-oh. 

“You’re not going to sleep?” Q asks. 

“Don’t need to.” As Bond sits in one of the armchairs by the window, Q’s eyes follow him. 

“You know, you’re not a very fun travel partner,” he says. Really, how rude. But then Bond has heard a lot worse. And, perhaps, he thinks, Q should think himself lucky that this is the impression he’s gotten. Bond is certainly able to entertain, but then the aftermath is not always as desirable.

“Most people would beg to differ,” he says. He’s sure Q will be able to figure out what he’s alluding to, but apparently it needs to be said out loud, because Q smirks, before he speaks again:

“Oh. And what do you do with these people?”

“I shag them,” Bond says. He’s not usually one to beat around the bush, when the question is this direct.

Q, as expected, smiles like he already knew this would be the answer.

“Well,” he says. “I don’t put out until the third date.”

He is, without a doubt, flirting; perhaps this is the social cue that Bond is most apt at picking up on. He takes a sip of his drink, to buy some time, and narrows his eyes to consider Q. This is most definitely a thing he could do; Q is. But he’s not sure he wouldn’t be ruining something in the process. 

“Is that so?” he ends up saying, after swallowing. Q raises his brows, before crawling under the duvet, and pulling it up to his shoulders. He stays on his side, watching Bond.

“Indeed,” he says. Still wearing a cheeky smile. “But you could join me in this bed.”

“There’s another one.” Bond uses the hand with the drink to gesture to the bed behind the one Q is occupying. Q doesn’t turn to look.

“I know,” he says, instead. “I do have eyes. You could still join me.”

“Why?”

Q turns to his back; maybe he’s annoyed, or realises the futility of whatever it is he is doing here. Before he replies, he turns his head to watch Bond back.

“Because it’s nice?” he says. “Sharing body-heat is. Because you’d like to?”

For a moment Bond considers if maybe Q isn’t coming onto him at all. Maybe he just feels particularly fond of the concept of being physical with other people. Perhaps it might be plausible that all he really wants is a body to curl around.

The thought is what ultimately cements Bond’s decision; there is no way he’s getting into bed with someone like Q, because Bond is not someone who sleeps with people in the literal sense of that word; Bond is someone who puts his hands inside of people, and roughs them up, before pulling back out and leaving empty space behind.

“I think you should just go to sleep, Q,” Bond says. 

Q scoffs, and turns away, but his voice has remained calm when he says, “All right. Suit yourself.”

Bond contemplates him, as he pulls the duvet further up, all the way over his shoulders, and, with closed eyes, turns back to his side, facing Bond. Magnificently, it takes only a second for Q’s face to go slack, and barely moments before his breath evens out and becomes nothing but soft puffs of air. 

He’s sleeping. Bond drowns another mouthful of his drink, and attempts to stop watching.

__

Q takes an age to wake up again. In fact, he sleeps so soundly that Bond is over by his bed a total of three times, holding a hand above his lips to feel if any air is exhaled from between them. Not that Bond thinks he’s dead; he knows enough of what a corpse looks like, to know that it’s not like that. Still: sleeping pills are not good when taken in abundance.

As Q sleeps, Bond works. 

Actually, that’s not true at all, but if he were a younger, or just a more meticulous agent, it probably would be. Instead, the reality goes something like this: As Q sleeps, Bond drinks.

Maybe it’s a bit creepy, watching your colleague as they are unconscious, but it’s not like there’s much else to look at in here. And Q is, well: quite an interesting object for observation. At least like this, all hunched up and curled together; that, and his absolutely monstrous mass of hair, is enough to make him look like the practical epitome of youthful innocence. At least to Bond, who hasn’t been young for a long time. If ever, that is.

He’s through the first glass of Scotch, when he decides that he’s really rather bored by sitting around. Q is softly snoring by now and, well; it’s Bond’s job to be curious.

Or, in other words: he goes through Q’s bag. 

There’s a shirt and underwear in there, which is, frankly, quite boring. There’s a book, too, but it’s on a Chess move, and Bond decides that Q is probably the biggest nerd he’s ever met. And that says a lot. The laptop he doesn’t dare touch at all, lest it explodes in his face, despite how much Q-branch apparently ‘doesn’t go in for that sort of stuff anymore.’

Next to the book, Bond finds a packet of chocolate-covered raisins next to a packet of sleeping pills. He sighs; he can’t help it. But he still opens the packet with the snacks inside, and takes out a few. They taste, as he expected, like garbage. He grimaces, and throws the packet away. Who is Q, and why would he subject himself to this?

The last thing that Bond finds inside, apart from basic toiletries, is by far the most interesting part of it all; inside a side pocket, there’s a small bottle of lube, and a line of three condoms. 

“What” Q’s voice reaches him; if he weren’t an agent, he’d have jumped, “the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

When Bond glances up to watch him, he finds Q sitting up in the bed, with the duvet loosely cocooned around his hips and legs. He looks properly sleep-rumpled, but also quite a bit cross.

“I was simply checking if you brought any new equipment for me.” 

“No. You were just not, were you?” Q says. 

Bond can’t figure out what he should take the lube and condoms to mean. That Q expected sex to happen here, in this hotel room, with him? Or that Q just generally expects sex to be a possibility at all times that you might as well be prepared for?

Judging by Q’s miffed expression, Bond wouldn’t get a proper answer if he asked right now. So, he doesn’t. Instead, in cover of the bag, which his hands are still hidden inside of, he drops the line of condoms from between his fingers, before pulling his hands out.

“I was bored,” he says, instead. 

“So?”

“You’re supposed to help me work.”

The groan he gets in reply is one that could really only be produced by someone who is used to finding him irritating; Q probably has for the majority of their encounters. Still, he throws the duvet away, and goes to fetch his trousers from the bathroom floor, so Bond at least achieved some sort of success. 

The speed with which Q gets ready, considering his recent awakening from slumber, would certainly be impressive if not for the fact that Bond’s skill within this field is absolutely unmatched and, he thinks, will most likely remain so for the remainders of time. 

Within less than two minutes he has drunk some water, speed-showered, put on some clothes, and is now sitting ready at the circular table with his laptop open; still looking cross, but now also appearing almost definitely awake. 

“So,” he says. “What do you need?”

__

For this mission, Bond has to infiltrate the home of a multimillionaire blackmailer in order to obtain information on, well; the information that he is in possession of. Which is all well and good, until you take into account the newly updated security system, which MI6 had most certainly not done, since it is no less than thirty-five hours old. Hence: Q.

“It’s code, all of it,” Q tells him, as he’s typing away. It’s true what he said to Bond the first time they met; he can do more damage during the first half hour out of bed, than Bond can accomplish in an entire week. It’s not true, however, that he does it all without hot beverages; despite the fact that it is currently twenty minutes past midnight, Bond was able to get them room service tea and sandwiches. Q stops hitting the keyboard for a second, as he sips the tea, before he continues on effortlessly. 

“Which means it’s fairly easy for me to tinker with it, so it plays out to our liking.” 

Bond allows himself a tug of the lips; it _is_ quite impressive, after all.

“All right,” he says. 

He’s been standing next to Q, watching the development on the screen in front of him, but now sits down across the table from him instead. He eats a grape, and drinks some tea, too, as Q goes on:

“I could re-code the entirety of the system, which would allow you to walk right in.”

“But?” Bond prompts. Q glances up briefly to meet his eye, and smirks, as if pleased.

“But,” he confirms, “that would be very easily detectable, and we’d risk alerting the target, which would mean a lot more guys for you to fight off. Not that you’d be incapable but, you know; would be easier just to avoid that.”

“Indeed,” Bond agrees. “So?”

“So, what we’re going to do,” Q goes on, “is create a sort of key-card that will go behind the code of the security system, and allow you to walk right in, but this time with the added benefit of being contained and undetectable until after-the-fact.” 

“Impressive,” Bond says; he can’t help himself. What he also can’t help is the smirk that creeps up on his features in response to the one Q sends him.

“Can you do it in time?” he asks. His mission is set to start at about noon that day, but he’ll need to be out of this hotel room at the very latest by ten to make it. He doesn’t have any concept of how long this will take. Regardless, he’s confident that no one could achieve the task faster than his quartermaster – innocently bed-ruffled hair or not.

“Yes,” Q says. “But I’m going to need you to fetch me my raisins and some more caffeine. Also, shower the alcohol stink away and get some rest, maybe?”

What a strange boy, Bond thinks. What a duality of opposites he possesses; perhaps Bond wouldn’t, in fact, have much power over him at all.

“All right,” he says. “Deal.”

Then he does as he’s told.

__

The mission, with Q’s key-card at hand, is one hundred per cent successful. Well. Bond successfully obtains the information, only has to shoot one person in the shin, and is wounded by no more than a thin cut to the place just above his right eyebrow. So: a pretty effective mission after all.

When he stumbles back into the hotel room, with a one-time cloth pressed over his eyebrow to stop the bleeding, it’s only a little past four in the afternoon. Bond was guided through by another Q-branch member, but he’d be more than surprised if Q hadn’t managed to be updated on his situation in some sort of way.

Q is sitting in one of the armchairs, appearing to be reading, but as soon as Bond steps inside, he glances up. His eyes instantly go to Bond’s forehead, where the wound is, and he inclines his head towards the bathroom wordlessly. 

Q, it seems, has spent his time fetching medical supplies. These, at least, are what he brings out as he joins Bond in the bathroom, before he begins fixing up Bond’s wound for him, still without saying anything.

As he stands there, between Bond’s slightly spread legs, fixing him up, Bond can’t help but consider the possible proposition from earlier. Q’s expression is more solemn as he works; almost as if he dislikes seeing Bond’s skin broken open, and the blood leaving his body; almost as if he feels something akin to worry.

Q is a sweet, sweet boy. Bond is high on adrenalin. And damn it if there’s anything more glorious than crawling inside a lovely, open boy, and staying there for a while.

“There we go,” Q says, as he finishes and draws his hands back. When Bond feels his own forehead, his fingertips are met by the smooth surface of the butterfly closure strip that Q has patched him up with.

Q takes a step back, but doesn’t move further away. As he does, he checks his wrist-watch.

“Our flight isn’t for another five hours,” he says. 

“All right.”

“I’m going to sleep some more. They’ll need me in the branch when we get back.”

It’s really already decided, even before Bond says the words. He’s already reached a conclusion that sounds something like the idea that temptations sometimes are stronger than reason.

“Can I join?” he asks. Q’s brows frown, before he purses his lips and nods. 

Apparently Q is not shy; at least he de-clothes himself the same amount as yesterday, before he gets into the bed, and crawls under the duvet. Bond never really does this; getting into bed with someone without the objective of sex leading them there. 

He thinks maybe that is where this will turn to, but as soon as he’s under the duvet, Q puts a fisted hand to his upper chest, before curling up against his side. 

“You know,” Bond says, turning his head so theirs are aligned, “this is me hitting on you.”

Q has already closed his eyes, and they remain so, but he still doesn’t hide his smile. In fact, he presses it into the skin on Bond’s shoulder, giving it a quick kiss, and settles in more comfortably.

“Third date,” he says; still smiling.

And Bond, well; Bond laughs.


	2. Chapter 2

_“History repeats itself. Somebody says this. / History is a little man in a brown suit / trying to define a room he is outside of.”_

 

You don’t work within the SIS, and do it as brilliantly as Bond, without learning to recognise patterns pretty easily; they are important, and almost always right, when it comes to understanding how things work and develop.

Q’s job consists almost entirely of them; sequences of numbers create action or design, patterns create other patterns. None of these things ever vary much.

The biggest pattern of them all, Bond thinks, is love. Romance follows several steps. As does the destruction of it. 

Bond’s pattern is a little more specific than that. There aren’t many people in his life, for whom he once felt affection, who hasn’t died, and there are none of those left alive that can look at him without shivering about the memory of the destruction he caused when he slammed into them with his empty hands. 

The second he makes the choice to pursue Q, he knows how it will go. They’ll fall into bed and then, because he is apparently alluring, and because his own intelligence rarely extends to his emotions, they’ll fall into love. 

Left, then, is only the ruination. 

He knows all of this. And still, he goes on. Maybe that is the cruellest part of them all. 

__

They nap for three hours, and Bond is surprised when he actually manages to be fast asleep throughout the entire thing. Q sleeps some more on the plane, which is probably for the best, judging by how uncomfortable he looks as they board it. In the airport they’re picked up, and once inside HQ they are dragged apart before any of them have time to say anything akin to goodbye.

One and a half weeks later, on a late Wednesday night, Bond finds Q in his lab, and kisses him. 

“Oh,” Q says, after the first one. 

Bond has his hands on his waist, and Q’s come up, almost as if on their own accord, to Bond’s shoulders. The touch is feather-light, but to Bond it still feels like the support is needed for Q to keep his balance. 

Q’s glance dances across Bond’s face for a moment. Bond waits patiently as his features are taken in, before Q’s eyes land on his lips, and he licks his own. When their eyes finally meet, Q’s are glinting with mischief. 

Bond kisses him again. 

This time Q is right there, ready to meet him, and does so with great enthusiasm. The kiss is deep and sultry; With Q, kissing seems like it could be the main act alone. The enjoyment, at least, that Q seems to get from it, is almost a bit too intense from something as simple as this. 

But then, Bond doesn’t exactly mind, when he gets something as eager as this for it; something like the way Q buries his hands in Bond’s hair, and pulls him in close, so their bodies are pressed flushed against each other. Something like the way that Q, when Bond pulls away a bit to speak, catches Bond’s lower lip between his own lip and teeth, grazing them against it. 

“Oh?” Bond asks. He does, at least, have the decency to check.

“I mean I’m a bit surprised.” 

Q is breathing just a tad heavier than before, and his pulse is definitely elevated; Bond sees it beating away in his neck. He’s grinning though, so if it really was a surprise, it seems to have been a good one.

“Really?”

“It just took you rather a while, is all.”

Q’s fingers move out of his hair, and down towards the nape of his neck instead, where they thrum against the fragile skin. He bites his bottom lip, as he glances back at Bond’s once, twice, several times. These are the kind of things that Bond is an expert at cataloguing and using for deduction.

“Maybe it’s not an entirely good idea,” Bond says. It’s the last attempt to change the course that they’re on; if Q pulls away now, Bond thinks, he’ll stop pursuing this, and perhaps the outcome will be better for them both.

“Yeah,” Q says. “You’re a bit full of yourself, aren’t you?”

He kisses Bond, before Bond has time to be surprised by his own chuckle. When he pulls back, some while later, it is to say, “But you could still drive me home, if you want.”

__

Bond does. 

On the way there, in his car, Q puts his feet up on the dashboard, and falls so far into the cushions of the seat, that it seems like he’s made it his mission to disappear into them.

There’s another thing: Now, in this brighter lighting, Bond is able to see the dark crescent moons beneath Q’s eyes, and deduce the story that they’re telling him. He’s able to think back the last couple of days and, with his limited knowledge of the movements of the other double-oh’s, realise that it’s been at least a good fifty-two hours since Q would last have been able to sleep. 

“You look tired,” Bond says. Q, who had been looking through his glove compartment and eating one of the mint-pastilles that Bond apparently keeps there, glances up at him with a slight frown.

“Rude,” he says. And: “Stop breaking my equipment, then.”

Bond doesn’t reply, but as he puts his eyes back on the road, it is with a small smile playing on his lips.

__

Perhaps there’s something he should have realised about Q by this point. Perhaps he should have known that it would be a regular occurrence, the very first time he saw Q, young and very-much-not-looking-like-an-SIS-employee as he was, and had to admit his own wrong first impression. 

The thing he should have realised is this: Q, more than anything, is a man who defies expectations. 

Most pressingly, at this current moment, he defies the expectations that what is about to happen is almost entirely shagging. 

In the elevator on the way to the correct floor, Q kisses him, and hums like he’s satisfied, like he’s enjoying himself, as if all this is, is entirely pleasant. He holds onto Bond’s shoulders, burrows into his skin a bit with soft-edged fingertips, and presses himself against Bond’s body, asking to be touched in much the same way a cat would.

That is all well and good. But once they leave the elevator, and make it inside Q’s flat, he doesn’t take the kissing back up. Instead he tells Bond to close the door behind him, and goes to his kitchen instead, leaving Bond behind, in the hallway, feeling out of place. 

“Whiskey?” Q calls to him from the kitchen. Bond decides to join him.

The kitchen is joined to the living room, and the two rooms are separated only by a wide kitchen island. Q, much as his words suggested, is currently looking through a cupboard holding various assortments of alcohol. As he must hear Bond entering, he pulls a bottle out, and holds it out in question. Bond shrugs and nods; to be honest he doesn’t much care. 

“What are you doing?” he asks. Q, who is currently pouring them both a glass of the drink, smiles, to himself it seems, since his head is turned downwards as he watches the movement of his own hands.

“Not shagging you,” he says. 

“Ah.” 

Bond walks around the kitchen island, so he’s by Q’s side. From this position he is able to back Q up against the counter, which is exactly what he does. Q simply smirks, and raises one of the glasses in a toast, before taking a sip of the golden liquid. 

Bond, almost in reply, begins unbuttoning Q’s cardigan down by his trousers. He gets through three before he looks back up, and is met by Q raising his brows at him. 

“Are you sure about that?” Bond asks. When he reaches the top button, opening that one, too, Q readily allows him to pull the cardigan off. 

Still, what he says is, “Indeed. I told you I don’t put out until the third date. This doesn’t count as one.”

Bond, despite himself, can’t quite help his smile. He tries pursing his lips to hide it, but judging by Q’s snort, it seems he is unsuccessful. 

When he pulls Q’s button-up out of his trousers, however, and begins unbuttoning that one from the bottom as well, Q’s only response is to lean back a bit more, supplying him with better access. 

“Is that really true?” Bond asks him. Q’s hands have made it back near his face, holding lightly onto his jaw this time. 

“No,” Q says. The kiss he leans in to press against Bond’s lips is most definitely a sexual one; deep and dragged-out, as if they have all the time in the world.

“But,” Q continues, pulling back a bit, “it’s good not to make it too easy for you.”

He sounds, well: nothing short of genuine.

“You’re serious?” Bond asks. He stops his hands from moving entirely, and pulls back enough to be able to see Q’s face. 

“Yes,” Q says. “One hundred per cent.” 

“Well,” Bond says. With a statement like that, he is certainly not going to continue. 

“But,” Q says. His fingers are now dancing across Bond’s collarbones. “You can sleep in my bed, if you want.”

Maybe it’s a joke. Maybe Q is just a strange, strange man. Either way, Bond can’t help his chuckle. 

“Do you think we will ever get to the figurative aspect of sleeping together, or is this where we’re destined to be?” he asks. Q, the bloody infuriating man, chuckles, too. 

“Well,” he says, “Why don’t we start with the literal aspect, and we’ll see how it goes?”

__

So. In a strange, and not at all anticipated turn of events, they don’t shag at all, but Bond sits on Q’s bed, listening, as Q speaks to him through the bathroom door, open ajar, as he brushes his teeth. 

When Q comes out, it is only wearing pants, and with all of the skin of his chest and his thighs right there, on display. He’s so pale he’s practically milky-white, and so skinny that Bond can nearly see his bones move, when he does. 

It would be the easiest thing in the world, breaking him, Bond thinks. 

That’s before Q kisses him, all soft and gentle, and in a way that really has no place here, in a situation like theirs. Then he knows it. 

And maybe, just maybe, he is wrong.

Q lets go of him, air completely nonchalant, and instead crawls past him to get under the covers. He watches Bond until Bond gets up from the bed, and begins pulling off his own clothes, too; then he checks his phone, buried in it, right up until the moment Bond, now down to his pants as well, crawls in next to him, on his side, and lets the duvet cocoon him. 

“Can I ask you something?” he asks. He supports his head in his palm; his arm is held up by his elbow, resting on the pillow beneath them both. Bond mirrors his position.

He nods for Q to go on, without saying anything.

“Right,” Q says. “I was wondering: What’s your favourite place you’ve lived in?”

Bond may not be in possession of a great amount of emotional intelligence, but he thinks he’s able to deduce what this question is actually about. The only times he’s ever lived outside of England itself has been in relation to the relationship he was in at the time. 

“Are you asking me who my favourite partner was?” Bond asks. “Bit tactless, isn’t it?”

Q bites his lip when he smiles; it doesn’t seem to be in attempt to subdue it, but is simply just because. Bond watches the lip, as Q’s teeth let go of it, and sees how it has reddened. 

“You’re good,” Q says. “I’m asking you about love.”

Ah.

“What about it?” 

“Do you think you know what it is?” Q asks. The fingers on his free hand come over to play with the hem of Bond’s T-shirt, which is a strange move to make in the middle of a questioning like this. But then Q, Bond is slowly finding out, is nothing, if not a curious man.

“It’s hard to say once you’re not in it,” Bond says. He thought he was, a few times before. Now it seems far enough away to be difficult to define. It’s like explaining a room you are outside of; mistakes and simplifications are bound to happen.

Q, it seems, considers this. His eyes lock themselves to some place behind Bond’s face, and a vacant expression falls over his features, as he purses his lips. Bond lets him.

“Hm,” Q says, eventually. His glance returns to Bond’s. “Can I tell you what it doesn’t have to be?”

Bond could snort; what does Q know about love? But, with a track-record like his own, it’s not impossible that Q knows quite a lot more than he does.

“All right?” he ends up saying. 

“Destructive.” 

Q says it as if it’s a final punctuation mark to a long thought. As if this is something profound; a realisation that he’s recently reached. 

Bond would roll his eyes or sigh, if not for the fact that, in actuality, Q might just be a mind reader, with the relevance of his words. Bond purses his lips and frowns, and honestly feels a little bit annoyed, as Q turns away from him, and onto his back instead. 

“We’re not shagging,” Q says. A true fact. “Not because I need to be special. But I need you to know that you don’t have the power to ruin me.”

Wow. Q is good or, as may or may not be just as, if not more, likely, Bond is just really transparent.

“No?” he asks. He only just manages to keep whatever mixture of impressment, amusement, and annoyance he is currently feeling out of his tone, and leave it neutral instead. 

Q turns his head on the pillow, so their eyes meet. He smiles.

“Not yet, at least,” he says. “Let’s see how you fare later on.”

Bond shakes his head and rolls his eyes. It’s useless, because he’s still smiling. When Q sees, he chuckles. Then he reaches up to turn off his bedside lamp, and they are thrown into darkness. 

“For now,” he says, into the night surrounding them now, “the only ones worrying about whether or not you’re dangerous are my cats.”

Bond laughs. He’s still laughing when Q curls around him, and kisses his jaw, as if saying goodnight. 

Perhaps, as it turns out, history is not a thing that needs to be endlessly repeated; perhaps, Bond thinks, there’s a possibility that this could be something entirely new.


	3. Chapter 3

_“In the dream I don’t tell anyone, you put your head in my lap.”_

 

Despite whatever reputation Bond may have, the truth is that, in fact, he is hardly ever intentionally cruel or uncaring. Yes, he has problems with love, but outside of that realm, he hardly ever causes people pain. He doesn’t like useless killing. If up to him, he never leaves other agents behind to fend for themselves, especially not if they are hurt. 

Maybe then, he shouldn’t be as surprised as he is, when, suddenly, he finds himself caring quite a deal about the wellbeing of this curious man that he has somehow come to sleep with twice. 

More than twice.

Over the span of the next month or so, Bond becomes accustomed to sleeping in Q’s bed. He doesn’t mean to. It’s just that he will occasionally be around Q-branch in the evening, getting debriefed, and he will occasionally find a Q, slumped over the desk in his office, looking as close to exhaustion as it should be possible to become. 

So; Bond takes him home. And then he gets into bed with him, and allows Q to curl up against his side.

And, well; it’s certainly not the worst thing that Bond has ever experienced.

Despite the fact of their getting increasingly closer and closer, Bond doesn’t actually know a whole lot about the nature of Q’s feelings about this new development. He’s in favour, sure; that much is pretty evident. In fact, when Bond thinks back, this whole thing started because of a request that Q himself made. 

Still; If Q’s emotions are of a romantic nature, or if this is purely a friend-based thing to him, Bond can’t tell.

That is, until a particularly terrible day, during which a particularly large amount of alcohol is consumed. 

__

Bond wakes up that morning in Q’s bed. 

This isn’t really notice-worthy at this point, of course. He’s become rather used to these sheets and pillows, and those two cats, occasionally wandering in and curling up at the bottom of the bed that they share. He’s become rather used to Q’s smell, too, and the sight of his mop of curls first thing in the morning, falling over his forehead, untamed and wild.

This morning when he wakes, Q is already talking to someone. Bond doesn’t open his eyes yet, but he can feel the sensation of small paws walking over the duvet, across his chest. 

“Hey,” Q says. It’s in the voice he uses when he talks to the animals; a few octaves higher than usual, and practically dripping with fondness. “Hey.” There’s the sound of the fury creature being scratched, and then a gentle purring. 

“How are you?” Q asks. The cat purrs some more, before Bond feels the weight of it settling down on top of him. He debates whether or not he should make it clear that he is, you know, quite a lot awake.

“Hm,” Q hums then. “What is that man doing here, eh?” he says, and Bond decides to wait for a little while longer to make himself known. It’s eavesdropping; not that he cares much. Morals become tainted like that, when you work within the SIS.

“Taking your spot,” Q continues. “Hm? I don’t know either, babe.”

For a stretched-out beat there is no sound, but the one of Q gently scratching what is probably the cat’s head. Bond can feel it on his chest when the cat moves in pleasure, and hear it quite close to his face when the cat hums some more. 

“Do you think he’ll stay?” Q asks then, and Bond has to try hard not to stir. “I don’t know if he will. But I kind of want him to. Don’t you?”

It’s the most open and honest he’s been about this arrangement yet. Perhaps, Bond thinks, it’s the kind of thing Q doesn’t dare say to his face. Perhaps, even, Bond doesn’t give off the air of being someone who would hear such a thing, and take it in kind. Maybe he seems like someone who’d want to run away.

But he doesn’t. He’s surprised at this himself. But, as he searches inside his head for his own reaction, all he finds is a desire to smile, and a warmth he can’t quite place. 

__

That day, however, and agent is hurt. 

Bond has just come home from a mission, so he doesn’t expect to be going in that day. He’s wrong. 

At a little past nine in the morning he reawakens, finding the bed empty but for him. That’s not what he’s thinking about right now though; that spot is reserved for his ringing phone, and the knowledge that phone calls like these only happen once something has gone wrong. 

That, he was right about. 002 is incapacitated, and Bond will be expected to take over his mission for him. Q-branch has apparently been given a speed job of having to prepare his equipment for him in less than twenty hours. 

At least 002 isn’t dead, Bond thinks. This is confirmed for the second time when he enters HQ, and is met by the frantic atmosphere that characterizes a time of disruption or business. Not the subdued one that characterizes a time after loss.

He goes to Mallory first, and gets the file, as well as a few words on the way. When he goes to Q’s office, there is so trace of him, but then Bond didn’t really expect to find him there in the first place. Instead, when he goes to Q’s lab downstairs, he finds the man bent over one of the tables, and a room more than usually occupied by Q’s minions. 

“Yeah,” Q says, when Bond arrives by the lab table; he doesn’t even look up, but evidently recognises Bond in some other way, “you’re not allowed to be here right now.”

“Why?” Bond asks. “Too classified even for me?”

“Nope,” Q says. On the table his hands had been working on what looks like the handprint-recogniser of Bond’s guns. Now they stop, as Q straightens his back and turns his head to meet Bond’s eyes. His expression is all tight and cross, in a way Bond recognises, but hasn’t seen for a long time.

“I’m just a bit angry with you, is all,” Q says. “Annoyed. Exasperated. _Displeased_. You get the picture.”

Bond is overcome by the urge to smile. He doesn’t, because that would most certainly mean his untimely death happening soon; he feels it nonetheless. 

“I didn’t hurt 002,” Bond says. As he does, Q’s nostrils flare. If it wasn’t directed at him, Bond could almost find it fascinating. 

“Hmm,” Q says; not in the way he does when he’s pleased, but instead emulating the sound of someone who is considering ripping Bond’s throat out. “No, no. But you did, however, decide not to care one bit about this equipment that takes ages to make, destroying it instead, resulting in the mess that is going on here right now. All because you’re apparently incapable of taking responsibility for anything ever.”

Rude,” Bond says. To his own surprise, he doesn’t feel any responding crossness whatsoever. Instead, he feels like giving Q a hug or a cup of tea. 

Or an apology.

“You deserve it,” Q says, before he goes back to the work he was doing. Bond purses his lips a bit, and shifts on his feet.

“I’m sorry,” he says, then. “About the equipment. I apologize.”

Q’s hands still, before his body seems to do the same. There are beats of this, before Q glances back up to contemplate him, now with frowning brows and narrowed eyes. Bond tries to make his own expression signal his sincerity, and watches as the cross lines slowly fall off Q’s face, leaving it slack and open instead.

“Wow,” Q says. “You must really like me.”

Bond rolls his eyes, but smiles, too. Q’s responding tug of the lips is first a smirk, before it seems he allows it to reach full strength, and it becomes a grin instead. 

“Thank you,” he says. “Apology accepted.”

“Good,” Bond says.

“Now go away. I’m busy.”

Bond does as he’s told. As he walks out of the lab once more, however, he feels Q’s eyes trained on his back, following him. As the door to the lab closes behind him, he smirks. 

__

The alcohol enters the picture when, exactly fifteen hours later, Q finds him in one of the sleeping rooms that was installed in HQ, when employees falling asleep on their desks started becoming a problem. Most of these always seemed to be from Q-branch. Bond decided long ago never to comment on it. 

In his right hand, Q has one of the boxes in which he always hands over Bond’s equipment to him. The fingers of the other one are wrapped around a bottle of tequila. 

At first it’s just the two of them, sitting cross-legged across from each other on the bed. Then, when somehow word must get out, it is Moneypenny and Tanner, too. 

They play a dice game; Moneypenny wins over them all, but Q really is disastrously bad at it. But then he’s drunk on quite a lot of alcohol, and not enough food at all. 

He falls asleep against Bond’s shoulder. He’s sitting upright still, which is almost a feat, but Bond notices the moment Q’s weight grows heavy against his side, and a soft snoring breathed out of Q’s nose reaches his ear. 

Tanner frowns at the sight, as if this image means he needs to recalculate some of his earlier assumptions. Moneypenny frowns, too, but when she does it, it looks like it’s in worry.

“You’re shagging him?” she asks. Seems the most likely deduction, Bond will giver her that. It’s still untrue.

“No,” he says. 

“But you’re close?”

“Why is that any of your business?” he asks. She sighs, and places her thumb below her eyebrow; it’s the spot where headaches seem to collect. Bond would argue that this isn’t his fault but, rather, 002 and tequila; if anyone is to blame, that is.

“He likes you.”

“Occasionally,” Bond says. It irks him, the assumption that Q is unable to take care of himself and his own business. Which is hypocritical, of course, since Bond made this very assumption back at the start. He’s learned a few things since.

Moneypenny, however, scoffs.

“Yeah,” she says. “You’re not actually blind. I’m sure you don’t really believe that.”

“What do you mean?” Bond asks. Moneypenny purses her lips.

“He’s into you,” she says. “Probably. At least his feelings about you are more good-natured than you really deserve. He went to Austria and behind Mallory’s back for you, for God’s sake.”

Bond pauses to consider this; the possibility that Q might be harbouring a few emotions just a bit stronger than he’s lead Bond to believe. 

Maybe a thing like this should scare him. Make him uncomfortable, perhaps. But, he’s surprised to find, it doesn’t.

What Moneypenny’s words seem to entail, is this: That Bond, in fact, could ruin Q; that Q lied to him, back at the start, when he renounced the possibility. That Q, throughout this whole thing, has been trying to protect himself. 

“So,” he says, to Moneypenny, “what are you saying?”

“Be honest with him,” she says. “Don’t lead him on. He deserves better than that.”

“Honestly, he probably deserves better than you,” Tanner says. 

Maybe he’s right, Bond thinks. But then there’s another thing: When Bond has imagined scenarios like this, they’ve always included musings on how to gently let the other person down. He doesn’t have those thoughts now. No; what he does have is considerations on how to become a man, who could be worthy of Q’s affection.

__

That night, Bond takes Q home. He doesn’t stay, because he has a mission to go on in the morning, but he leaves some water and pills on Q’s bedside table for him, and kisses Q’s forehead before he goes. 

The next day, as he’s sitting on the plane, Moneypenny sends him a text saying, “002 is all right. Q is, too.” 

Bond shuts off his phone, and thinks about allowing the warmth in his chest to blossom.

__

Q may be able to hack the entirety of London’s CCTV, and therefore to keep track of anyone he pleases, but Bond is good at asking favours and getting them.

Or: when he comes back from the mission, he finds Q in the National Gallery.

Q is sitting on one of the benches, with his back to the door Bond is coming in through, meaning that Bond is able to quietly slip in beside him without being noticed first. He feels it almost in the air around Q, when his body stiffens a little, as he tenses up.

“Welcome back,” Q says. It’s enough to let Bond know, that he, some way or another, has become aware of the conversation that was had while he was sleeping; this is neutral, in a way that is clearly carefully constructed.

“Thank you,” Bond says.

“Hm.” Q’s fingers thrum on his thighs. Bond recognises it as a nervous gesture; it’s the only thing giving him away.

“You don’t have to be gentle,” Q says. “Just be blunt.”

Ah. So, just like everyone else, it seems that Q expects Bond’s reaction to be something akin to running away. For once, then, Bond is able to surprise him. 

“There’s nothing to be blunt about,” he says. 

Q’s fingers still. For four seconds, he stops breathing. 

“Oh,” he says, then. This is a tone Bond has hardly ever heard on him; surprise. 

“Yeah,” Bond says, confirming the interpretation that Q seems to have reached; this is about affection, and him having it. 

He feels it more than sees it when Q turns to look at him. The glance burrows into his jaw, before he turns his own head, and it burrows into his eyes instead. His lips don’t carry much of his own grin, but he can feel how his eyes bear the weight of it instead. As Q watches, he bites his bottom lip, before he grins too and, sounding quite breathless, giggles. 

“I’ve been thinking about kissing you for a while,” Bond says. They haven’t, since that first time. From now on, it seems they will again.

“Hm,” Q says; voice low and dragged-out. He’s flirting. “So kiss me.”

Bond does. He holds Q’s head in place with a soft hand on his cheek as he presses in, and presses their lips together. It’s firm and reassuring, before it is deep and sensual instead. Q’s fingers become splayed across his jaw; perhaps this is Q’s thing. 

When they pull apart, Q stays close by, and breathes Bond in. His chin rests on Bond’s shoulder, and his nose pushes into Bond’s cheek.

“Thanks for the pills and the water, by the way,” he says. 

“Sure.”

Q hums a bit, before he shifts, and leans into Bond’s side instead, resting his temple on Bond’s shoulder. His fingers touch the insides of Bond’s elbow. He hasn’t made any of these moves, these touches, before; Bond is able to recognise that they’re only here now, because Q finally thinks they’ll be accepted. 

“I brought home your equipment this time,” Bond says. 

Q blows air out through his nose; it’s a sound that would have been a chuckle, it seems to say, if Q had a bit more energy.

“Wow,” he says. “So you do really like me.”

Bond chuckles, too. The warmth originating in his chest, spreading all through his body, doesn’t feel like a fire burning so brightly it’ll have to crash. It feels like the kind of smoulder that manages to last all through the night, and still be there in the morning. 

“Something like that,” Bond says. 

“Hm.” Q presses in closer. Bond puts a hand to his thigh. This, he thinks, he could get used to. “You’re not so bad, after all.”

No, Bond thinks. Maybe he’s not.


	4. Chapter 4

_“This is the place, you say to yourself, where everything starts to begin. / Digging out the bullet and holding it up to the light.”_

 

That evening, after Bond has been debriefed, he drives Q home. And then he stays.

For the first time ever, they do more than just sleep.

Bond kisses Q in the kitchen, and this time Q doesn’t say, “I’m not shagging you.” Instead, he puts his arms around Bond’s neck, and hums in to it, as if he is superbly pleased. When Bond backs him up against the counter, and palms a nipple through his shirt, Q giggles.

“What?” This is not a reaction Bond is used to.

“No, sorry,” Q says; his voice is filled with laughter. “It’s just, do you think we’re going to have sex for the first time tonight?” He breaks away to chuckle some more. “It’s just, you’re kissing me like it’s quite a big deal.”

Maybe it is a big deal, Bond thinks. For once. He doesn’t say this. Instead, he asks,

“Do you want to?” He already knows what the answer is; at least he feels that the way Q is currently pulling him in close, and rutting a bit against him, is a pretty good indicator.

“I mean, three is an arbitrary number, isn’t it?” Q says. He’s talking about the dates, and putting out, Bond realises. “Might as well be zero, really.” 

“Might as well be,” Bond agrees. 

Q hums, and is still humming when Bond pulls his button-up out of his trousers, and starts unbuttoning it from the bottom, just like previously. This time, though, Q is ahead of him, as he unbuttons it at the top, and pulls it off over his head. 

Well. Almost off. It appears to be stuck around his wrists.

Q holds them out to him with a sheepish expression. That, and one of being entirely mischievous. It seems he’s rather unembarrassed about this.

“Can you undo my cuff-buttons for me, perhaps?” he asks, and Bond, well; Bond is just so goddam in love with him, isn’t he?

Bond rolls his eyes, but does so with fondness. Then he does as he’s asked. 

“Sexy, this,” he comments, as he unbuttons the left cuff, and tugs the shirt completely off Q’s left arm. Q leans against the counter behind him languidly. With his newly free hand he grabs onto the back of Bond’s neck lightly, as Bond works on the other cuff.

“No,” Q says. “But I’m cute.”

Bond chuckles, as he pulls the other shirt-arm off, and throws the entirety of it to the floor. He traps Q between his arms, as his hands rest on the edge of the counter behind them, and leans in close. 

“You’re arrogant,” he says. Q grins. They’re so close it almost makes their lips touch.

“Sure,” he says. “Kiss me anyway?”

Bond does.

If Bond had any doubts about Q’s desire for this, they evaporate as soon as they are inside the bedroom. As Bond rids himself of his own shirt, Q makes quick work of Bond’s trousers, letting them fall to the floor, before he leans in to kiss one of Bond’s nipples. Maybe Bond is marvellous at this part, but Q is not so bad, either. 

“So,” Q says, as Bond unbuttons Q’s trousers and pulls down the zipper. 

“So?” With this newly added room, Bond is able to put his hands down the back of Q’s pants, and grab onto him. Q, humming with a smile, seems to be in favour of this. Especially so, when Bond lets an index finger crawl towards Q’s entrance.

“Like this?” Bond asks. 

“I should think so,” Q says. 

As Bond gently pushes him onto the bed, Q keeps smiling. He tugs Bond with him, on top of him, and spreads his legs for him. Bond kisses his chest, and runs two flat palms over his thighs. 

When Bond pulls Q’s trousers entirely off, before throwing his pants the same way, Q stretches out towards his bedside table, and pulls the lube and condoms out from there. Bond kisses his inner thighs, then his stomach, before travelling up Q’s chest until he reaches his mouth.

“Is that you move?” Q asks into the kiss. Bond decides that release can wait; he wants to tease first. 

“Do you want a move?” he asks. 

“Hit me with it,” Q says. Bond sighs and shakes his head, but it’s worth it to see the unabashed grin on Q’s face. 

“Turn around,” Bond says then, and Q stops smiling in favour of looking very aroused. 

When Q does as asked, Bond teases his way down his back, slowly and with open-mouthed kisses, before he reaches the spot where Q really wants him. 

He coaxes Q open then, with his tongue and with his lips, until Q is breathing so heavily he might as well have just run a marathon. The sight of him, when Bond allows him to turn back around, is enough to make Bond’s own arousal flare; his cheeks and chest are flushed bright pink from the exertion, his hair is tightly curled from the humidity of his sweat-glistening skin, and his cock is hard and leaking onto his stomach. 

“Yeah, all right,” Q says. “That’s a good move.”

Bond chuckles. Sex with Q, it seems, is about more than the release. It’s about laughter, too.

“I think you should be on top, so I don’t hurt you,” Bond says. Q’s expression looks almost vacant with the pleasure, but at the words he focuses on Bond for a moment, before he nods and moves.

He ends up sitting in Bond’s lap. When he sinks himself down on Bond, his face goes slack, as he breathes out with the pleasure. His nails burrow in to Bond’s shoulders. When he groans, Bond kisses the sound out of him.

“Okay?” he asks. His hands are on Q’s hips, to steady him.

“Yes,” Q says. Then he chuckles. Both of the sounds are breathless. “I’m just fine.”

He begins moving. As he does, he throws his head back a bit, and closes his eyes when he breathes out a sigh, that, moments later, becomes a whimper. It makes Bond have easy access to his neck, which he takes full advantage of, as he presses kisses to the pulse-point he finds there.

Bond absentmindedly realises that he will have nail marks all over his shoulders tomorrow, from the way Q is grabbing onto them. He doesn’t mind. Not even when it becomes painful, as he helps Q move in just the right angle, and Q’s breath becomes humid against his temple, as he groans breathlessly into it.

From then on, it doesn’t take long until Q’s body tightens around him as he comes, breathing his moan into Bond’s mouth. Bond follows not long after; the sight of Q, spent, flushed, and _happy_ , is enough to make his pleasure aching. 

That doesn’t mean it ends. After he finishes, Q keeps kissing Bond. His face, his neck, his chest; as if he just can’t get enough. As if this was about closeness, as much as it was about sex. 

“Yeah,” he says, once his breathing becomes a little less laboured. “I can definitely work with sex like that.”

Bond laughs, with his arms around him, and it feels a lot like putting his heart in Q’s hands. 

“What a compliment,” he says.

Q chuckles into his mouth. Then he kisses him again.

__

Two weeks later, Q makes him an exploding pen. He hands it to Bond, with a secretive smile, when Bond is by his office for a debriefing. When Bond opens the small case it’s hidden in, he laughs.

“I thought we didn’t make these anymore?” he says. Q, damn him, smirks, and reaches out to run a hand up Bond’s forearm.

“Well, you know,” he says. “It’s the symbolism of things.”

Bond kisses him, despite the fact that people might see. Moneypenny knows anyway, and so does Tanner. If Mallory has it in him to care, it’s not like he can do anything about it; neither of them are dispensable.

Either way, none of that really matters. What does, is the fact that this feels like something entirely different from the crashing-and-burning that Bond has had before. This feels like something that could last instead. 

Bond knows loss. He knows the destructive power of love. He knows how to crawl into people, taking what they have, and leaving with it before they even notice he was there in the first place. He knows what it’s like having that done to him, too.

This is none of that. This, Bond thinks, when Q tells him to ‘bugger off, I’m busy, but you could bring me a cup of tea to be nice?’ feels a lot like a choice. The choice, he reckons, is them.

__

The next time Bond is on a mission, and has to go rogue during it, he calls Q. Not that Q would be worried; Bond does this often, and is rarely ever hurt.

Still, when Q picks up, his voice is curt as he speaks.

“Yes?” he says.

“Q,” Bond says; effectively revealing himself to the man, but not to most of the people who could be overhearing this.

“Fuck,” Q says. It seems Bond, for once, managed to take him aback. “What the fuck? Why are you calling me and not HQ?” Q asks. Bond smiles, just a little. 

Worry creeps into Q’s tone then, when he continues, as if on a second thought: “Are you all right? You’re not hurt, are you? Report?”

“I would if you’d let me speak,” Bond says. He’s fond, though; treacherously so. The phone complains when Q exhales into it.

“Okay?” Q prompts; clearly impatient.

“I’m still going dark,” Bond says. Q sighs again, and this time it sounds as close to crossness as is possible for him now. 

“What the fuck?” he says, again. Bond smiles. Articulate as always, that man.

“You can make sure this call isn’t traced, right?” he asks. 

“Then why are you making it?” There’s an edge to Q’s tone, but while it was worry before, it is definitely now just his usual exasperation.

“I thought maybe you were worried.”

“Oh for– What the bloody hell, Bond?” Q says. 

“James.”

“You’re not James to me right now. You’re never James to me.” True, Bond thinks. James seems like someone he was once upon a time; a person he once wanted to be, before he understood that he could be who he was, Bond, and still have the intimacy he thought only James entailed. 

“I thought you’d appreciate it,” he says. “I thought maybe it’d be romantic.”

Q sighs once more, but it is quickly made inaudible when he follows it with a giggle, octaves higher than usual and a little hysteric. But then Bond’s antics have been known to have that effect on people; maybe Q shouldn’t be blamed.

“I think we’ll stick with shagging and mildly reluctant bed sharing, yeah?” he says.

“It’s not reluctant.” Q knows this, of course, but it never hurts to say it.

“No?” Lower, teasing; said like it was a melody. Q is flirting.

“I wouldn’t have accepted your cats, if it was.” Q laughs. “Be patient,” Bond continues. “This is new to me.”

“All right.” Q sounds, well; he sounds fond. Bond, not so much a surprise by now, misses him intensely. His voice, through the phone, is a sorry substitute for actually being around him.

“This is not the conversation I thought we’d have,” Bond says. 

“Come home.” Q says it as if this was the conversation they were already having. Perhaps it was. 

“Home?” Bond asks. Is home his own flat, barely ever used anymore? Is it Q’s? Maybe it is the HQ, to which he’s devoted most of his life and energy. Or perhaps, by now, home isn’t so much a place, as it is a person.

“Is where the heart is,” Q says; as if he could listen in one Bond’s thoughts.

“Heart?” Bond says. He’s smiling. Q might be, too.

“Do you have a vacancy?” Q asks. Bond is completely unable to subdue his grin. 

“Not if you’ll take it,” he says. This seems like the most important agreement of his life. And then, simultaneously, as something so simple it’s strange they haven’t done it already.

“Deal,” Q says; like Bond knew he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, you. Yeah, you. This is the end, so why don't you tell me what you thought? I'd appreciate it a great deal!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [shezzaisgay](http://shezzaisgay.tumblr.com)


End file.
